Now I order you to retain this creed for your nourishment throughout life and never to accept any alternative, not even if I myself were to change and say something contrary to what I am now teaching, not even if some angel of contradiction, changed into an angel of light, tried to lead you astray. For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which you have now received, let him be accursed in your sight. – St Cyril of Jerusalem

The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots
–The Federalist
“In recent days we’ve heard a steady drumbeat of lies, distortions, and disingenuousness from the mainstream media about almost every aspect of the unrest now gripping American cities. The deceit is almost too pervasive and amorphous to describe,” John Daniel Davidson writes.

Trump, HBCUs and Progress
–Townhall
“As both of us can attest, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) provide a vital path for young African-Americans to reach the true heights of their potential,” Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain write. “The scale and duration of President Trump’s commitment to HBCUs is a story often ignored in the popular press, but it fits neatly within the framework of his governing philosophy.”

How Financial Institutions Can Help America Heal
–The Wall Street Journal
“I am all too familiar with the heartbreak and pain that so many in the black community experience as they see such events play out repeatedly,” writes Rodney Hood. “President Trump appointed me the first African-American to lead a federal banking regulatory agency, the National Credit Union Administration . . . Since I assumed the chairmanship last year, much of my focus has been on building and reinforcing places that have fallen behind.”

The Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt was prompted by an Angel visiting Joseph in a dream and warning him that King Herod would seek out to harm the newborn Baby Jesus in order to protect his throne. They quickly fled into Egypt, but early on in their travels they found refuge from Herod’s soldiers in a miraculous grotto during the Massacre of the Innocents, today known as the Milk Grotto.

“When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt” – Matthew 2:13-14.

Tradition says that in this grotto while the Holy Family was resting before continuing on their journey into Egypt, the Virgin Mary nursed a hungry Christ Child. A single drop of Mary’s milk fell upon the ground inside the grotto, and the limestone miraculously turned from its original yellowish-brown to a pure white.

The Milk Grotto quickly became a site of pilgrimage for early Christians, who believed that mixing the soft white chalk of the cave in their food or drink will improve fertility and milk production. Couples having trouble conceiving would travel all across Christendom to the Milk Grotto in hopes the white powder would help bring them a child. By the late 4th century, a small chapel was built around the cave to show reverence for its miraculous nature.

In 1872, the current Chapel of the Milk Grotto was built over the site of the original 4th century chapel, with just fragments of the floor remaining. The chapel is located in Bethlehem on the West Bank, just a short distance south of the Church of the Nativity.

Today, pilgrims visiting the Milk Grotto are able to receive a small bag of the “milk powder” from the custodial friars of the grotto. Couples looking to benefit follow a forty day devotion, which includes drinking a small amount of the powder daily and saying a daily prayer for fertility. Every year, the friars receive pictures of newborn children and letters from thousands of couples attesting to the miraculous nature of the powder and how it helped them conceive.

Read more on mariedenazareth.com:

Forgiving the men who killed my parents and brother was a process, a journey into deeper and deeper prayer,” Immaculée Ilibagiza told me as we sat in the lobby of a Manhattan hotel last June. Intense prayer, she said, had helped her survive the three months that she and several other women lay crammed into a small bathroom in the home of a Protestant pastor near her home in the western province of Kibuye, on Lake Kivu. Pastor Murinzi, a Hutu, did not share in the ethnic hatred between Hutu and Tutsi that burst forth in Rwanda in 1994. He took in the eight Tutsi women who begged for refuge at his home. Immaculée’s father had sent her running to the pastor’s house when a crowd of machete-armed Hutu bore down on the family’s home in Mataba in western Rwanda. But her father did not survive, nor did her mother, who was chopped down in front of their house, nor did a beloved brother, Damascene, who was tracked down and murdered weeks later after a presumed friend betrayed his hiding place.

Immaculée Ilibagiza (wikipedia.org image)

Ms. Ilibagiza has described her experiences in two books, Left to Tell and Led by Faith. During our interview, she described some steps of her interior journey: from hatred and a desire for revenge to compassion and forgiveness. Her faith, she said, was rooted largely in devotion to Mary. As she recited the Rosary, a verse from the Lord’s Prayer (“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”) helped to begin an inner transformation even as she lay in hiding. Those days were filled with terror, because machete-wielding Hutu frequently searched the pastor’s house.

Immaculée still had the red and white rosary her father had given her before rushing her to the pastor’s house. Every day upon waking at 6 a.m., she recited the Rosary of the seven sorrows, beginning with Simeon’s words to Mary that a sword would pierce her heart. In our conversation, she stressed that she said these prayers from deep within, meaning deeply each word. Again and again, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those” resonated ever more deeply in her heart. “If God really is the father of everyone, including the Hutu who were carrying out the slaughter and looking for me by name—I could hear them calling me as they periodically circled the house,” she said. “How could I keep wishing I could destroy them?” She felt she would be lying to God. She also saw an inner image of Jesus on the cross and heard his words, “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

Read more on mariedenazareth.com:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on what is allowed and not allowed in New York City during coronavirus:

“Anyone who tries to get in the water, they’ll be taken right out of the water.” That’s what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently said about his corona virus policy. Who will take them out of the ocean? The cops. Can there be beach parties? Not unless everyone is at least six feet away from each other. If they are not, the cops will get them as well.

What if the beach-goers swell to the thousands and take to the streets, standing arm-in-arm, to protest racial injustice? Is that okay? Yes. Shouldn’t the cops enforce social distancing? No, not at all. What if the protesters get violent? No problem, the cops will go easy.

What if, instead of protesting, a very small group of people want to go to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? They don’t want to protest, just pray. They pledge to stay six feet apart. They promise not to engage in violence. Can they do so? No.

This is the mentality of Bill de Blasio, formerly known as Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm, and before that Warren Wilhelm, Jr. His inconsistent identity is not typical of his policies. He is very consistent there.

When a reporter for a Jewish newspaper asked him how he can justify throngs taking to the streets in a mass assembly, but cannot approve of a small church service, he got indignant. “Four hundred years of American racism, I’m sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.”

In other words, de Blasio decided to “privilege” protesters, many of whom suffer the pangs of “white privilege” (it is not the sons and daughters of the working class who are trashing the city), all because he thinks that protesting racism justifies jettisoning his shutdown.

What if the object of the protest was his racism? He has repeatedly promoted policies that discriminate against Asian Americans by denying them their earned seats in New York’s elite public schools. He likes racial quotas. His contempt for these “people of color” surely merits a protest. Would he allow it?

Would he allow black and Hispanic parents to protest his racism? Many minorities want school choice, and they overwhelmingly favor charter schools. Private, parochial, and charter public schools are doing more to promote upward social mobility than the public schools ever have. Why does he always seek to deny black and brown New Yorkers the same avenue to success that white rich people have? Would he give the green light to a protest against his racially discriminatory policies?

As for religious services, we know where his heart is. This is a man who raised money for the communists in Nicaragua when he was young, and traveled, illegally, to Castro’s Cuba for his honeymoon, lying to his own children about where it took place (he told them it was in Canada). This is not the biography of a man of faith.

De Blasio boycotted the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for years because he did not like the house rules for marching, and refused to criticize the owner of the Empire State Building for refusing to light the towers in blue and white in honor of Mother Teresa’s centenary. More recently, he lashed out at Rev. Franklin Graham—who brought medical staff to Central Park to attend to coronavirus patients—because the minister thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman.

This is the profile of an extremist. He throws the health of New Yorkers overboard to allow for a jammed protest he likes, and then invokes his health edict to ban people of faith from attending their house of worship. No wonder he is increasingly viewed with contempt.

Six or seven centuries “are like an evening gone” when tracing the course of common sense, and so James Madison found no anachronism in conjuring the shades of Juvenal and Cleon, more than six centuries apart, to make a point about the perils of the right and wrong manipulation of human will. He asked with Juvenal, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The dilemma—“Who will guard the guardians?”—was the same dilemma that conflicted the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war when their better instincts for peace were compromised back in the fifth century B.C. by the seductive propaganda of Cleon. In this thesis, Madison was joined by Hamilton and Jay in The Federalist Papers, which were not expected to be the daily reading of farmers and merchants, but which could easily be understood by them and anyone bound by human nature. The matter at hand was “a rage for paper money, for abolition of debts, for an equal division of property.” That rage resulted in Shay’s Rebellion, and occasioned reflection on mob rule.

People can indulge contrary instincts to riot or to stay calm, because their will is free to do so. It is a principle denied by those who excuse moral anarchy by saying, “The devil made me do it.” That is the theological version of the behaviorist’s impulse to blame disordered behavior on external influences.

The rage now inflaming our cities is taking place between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, although it is unlikely that those enraged are liturgically sensitive to that.

Trump, HBCUs and Progress

“As both of us can attest, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) provide a vital path for young African-Americans to reach the true heights of their potential,” Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain write in Townhall.

“The scale and duration of President Trump’s commitment to HBCUs is a story often ignored in the popular press, but it fits neatly within the framework of his governing philosophy. This administration has the interests of all citizens at heart and is always trying to fund and support solutions that truly empower black Americans.”

“Around the nation we are seeing police at the breaking point. They are showing restraint in the face of insane abuse . . . Thanks to the hysteria being stoked by the media and Democrats hoping for electoral advantage, police are being killed and injured and abused,” Miranda Devine writes in the New York Post.

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a stunning admission yesterday about allegations that the Obama Administration spied on the Trump campaign. The moment came amid questions from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked, “If you knew then what you know now, would you have signed the [FISA] warrant application?” Rosenstein’s answer: “No, I would not.” Read more from David Marcus in the New York Post.

“In recent days we’ve heard a steady drumbeat of lies, distortions, and disingenuousness from the mainstream media about almost every aspect of the unrest now gripping American cities. The deceit is almost too pervasive and amorphous to describe,” John Daniel Davidson writes in The Federalist.

Babies for Sale

The New York State Legislature has legalized commercial gestational surrogacy—the contractual renting of wombs and the buying and selling of newborn babies.

This was done at the insistence of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who did not let the crisis of coronavirus go to waste. He refused to debate the bill as a stand-alone piece of legislation. Instead, he buried his surrogacy proposal in the state budget, which passed in the wee hours of the morning on April 3.

It is illegal under state law to sell organs, but women can now rent their wombs for profit, assuming they survive the surrogacy process. Gestational surrogacy involves impregnating a surrogate mother by implanting embryos created from the eggs of the intended mother or egg donor, and the sperm of the intended father or sperm donor. Women and newborns often do not survive gestational pregnancies, and those who do are often affected physically and psychologically.

For instance, surrogacy survivors Brittney Rose Torres and Melissa Cook each carried triplets. During their pregnancies, they were told to abort two of the three children, and faced threats and financial ruin for refusing to do so. Abortion and selective reduction clauses are routinely written into all surrogacy contracts as a matter of control over the end product, the child. Many embryos die in the surrogacy process. And it is well-documented in medical literature that a woman pregnant with “donor” eggs is at a very high risk of pregnancy-related complications such as preeclampsia and even death. Michelle Reaves and Crystal Wilhite died while giving birth as surrogates, leaving their own children without a mother.

Yet New York is now open for the business of buying and selling babies. Surrogacy brokers, lawyers, and fertility doctors will profit handsomely, while surrogate mothers and female egg donors will bear all the risks.

Altruistic surrogacy has always been legal in New York. But Cuomo’s commercialization of the procedure reverses a signature decision of his father, Gov. Mario Cuomo, who outlawed surrogacy contracts in 1992. In the wake of the “Baby M” surrogacy battle in New Jersey in the 1980s, Mario Cuomo convened a task force, which unanimously concluded that contractual surrogacy could not be distinguished from the sale of children and that it placed them at significant risk. It also agreed that surrogacy undermines the dignity of women, children, and human reproduction. The task force rejected the notion that the right of a parent to a relationship with the child in her own womb should be bought and sold or waived irrevocably in advance of the child’s birth.

But opinions changed—especially since same-sex marriage was legalized in New York in 2011. Some of the fiercest lobbyists for commercial surrogacy in New York have been gay activists. Andrew Cuomo had the help of Andy Cohen, of Bravo TV’s What Happens Live. Cohen is a gay man who has a child born via surrogacy. The bill’s author was Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Greenwich Village), another gay man with children born via surrogacy. The formidable political influence of the gay community—which portrays commercial surrogacy as an extension of gay rights—has changed how surrogacy is viewed.

In 2017, the task force issued a new report, which stated:

The passage of the 2011 Marriage Equality Act in New York State and the decision of the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 requires the reexamination of the state’s policies regarding surrogacy. Equity must be a driving principle if all families are to enjoy the opportunity to welcome children into their family. Gestational surrogacy affords lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families an important opportunity to have children. LGBT families should have options similar to those of other families facing infertility, and equal access to adoption and ART.Meanwhile, those on the task force who opposed legalizing commercial surrogacy were chided for “divisive rhetoric regarding non-traditional families, the LGBT community and reproductive rights of women by presenting beliefs and opinions as facts.” On February 11 of this year, Cuomo launched his “Love Makes a Family” campaign. He declared, “it is shameful that we are only one of three states that does not allow LGBTQ individuals and people struggling with fertility to use gestational surrogacy to start families.”

Surrogacy advocates claim the law protects women through a “Surrogates’ Bill of Rights.” Yet Cuomo refused to add protections to the surrogacy bill, such as provisions sought by Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan). While Krueger’s alternative bill remained flawed, it at least recognized the myriad conflicts of interest involved in commercial surrogacy, and the exploitation and health risks to women and children. For example, the Krueger bill required background checks and home visits.

Cuomo’s law states that the “intended parent or parents” (who do not have to be married) are not subject to any financial or criminal background checks. Moreover, only one of the parents is required to be a U.S. citizen or “lawful permanent resident,” which is an invitation for the wealthy from other countries to come to New York to purchase offspring—a practice already pervasive in California. This new law effectively encourages reproductive trafficking and reproductive tourism.

Surrogacy advocates claimed this bill was an extension of the state’s marriage equality law. But the legalization of gay marriage is no reason to open this dangerous can of worms. There is no right to harm others in order to have a child. But for gay couples—who will pay handsomely for kids—the demand for biological offspring has became more politically important than the health and exploitation risk surrogacy poses to women and children.

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PLEASE DONATE TO KEEP THIS BLOG OPERATING. GOD BLESS+ YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY DAILY PRAYERS! Marianne, my wife, suffered a heart attack on March 13th, 2012. On 7/23/2013, she suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for over 3 weeks. On 8/9/2013, Marianne went to the Lord. Deacon John

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Psalm 34 (35) Speaks to my heart:

The Lord, a saviour in time of persecution
O Lord, arise to help me.
Judge, Lord, those who are judging me:
attack those who are attacking me.
Take up your shield and come out to defend me.
Brandish your spear and hold back my pursuers.
Say to my soul, “I am your deliverance.”
Let them be thrown into confusion,
those who are after my life.
Let them be weakened and put to flight,
those who plan harm to me.
Let them be like chaff blowing in the wind,
when the angel of the Lord scatters them.
Let their paths be dark and slippery,
when the angel of the Lord harries them.
For it was without cause that they spread out their nets to ensnare me,
without cause that they dug a pit to take my life.
Let death come upon them suddenly,
may they be entangled in their own nets.
But my soul will exult in the Lord
and rejoice in his aid.
My bones themselves will say
“Lord, who is your equal?”
You snatch the poor man
from the hand of the strong,
the needy and weak
from those who would destroy them.
Lord, plead my cause; defend me with your strength.
Lying witnesses rose up against me;
they asked me questions I could not answer.
They paid me back evil for the good I did,
my soul is desolation.
Yet I – when they were ill, I put on sackcloth,
I mortified my soul with fasting,
I prayed for them from the depths of my heart.
I walked in sadness as for a close friend, for a brother;
I was bowed down with grief as if mourning my own mother.
But they – when I was unsteady, they rejoiced and gathered together.
They gathered and beat me: I did not know why.
They were tearing me to pieces, there was no end to it:
they teased me, heaped derision on me, they ground their teeth at me.
My tongue shall speak of your justice, all day long.
Lord, how long will you wait?
Rescue my life from their attacks,
my only life from the lions.
I will proclaim you in the great assembly,
in the throng of people I will praise you.
Let not my lying enemies triumph over me,
those who hate me for no reason,
who conspire against me by secret signs,
who do not speak of peace,
who plan crimes against the innocent,
who cry out slanders against me,
saying “Yes! Yes! We saw it ourselves!”
You see them, Lord, do not stay silent:
Lord, do not leave me.
Rise up and keep watch at my trial:
my God and my Lord, watch over my case.
Judge me according to your justice,
Lord: my God, let them not rejoice over me!
Let them not think to themselves,
“Yes! We have what we wanted!”
Let them not say,
“We have swallowed him up.”
But let those who support my cause rejoice,
let them say always “How great is the Lord,
who takes care of his servant’s welfare.”
And my tongue too will ponder your justice,
and praise you all day long.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.